McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader, Revised Edition · Lesson V · Part 2: Lessons I-XII: Storms, dawns and old tales
11. After the Thunder-Storm (James Thomson)
Goal: Your student reads blank verse aloud smoothly and explains the poet's question to mankind.
You'll need
- The book, or the scan beside this guide
- A notebook and pen
- A dictionary
What's in the book
A passage of blank verse from Thomson's The Seasons: the sky clears after a storm, nature rejoices, and the poet asks whether man alone will forget to give thanks. An author note comes first.
The lesson, step by step
Words and meanings
Before reading, find these words in the selection and look up any your student does not know: tumultuous, interminable, sublimer, azure, serenes (here a verb: makes calm).
About the author
The book says James Thomson (1700-1748) was a Scottish poet, a clergyman's son, who studied at Edinburgh and went to London in 1724. His best-known work is The Seasons. It adds that he was thought heavy in appearance and indolent in habits, but his writing is always moral in tone.
Read it aloud
Read the opening together. It is one long sentence across four lines:
As from the face of heaven the shattered clouds
Tumultuous rove, the interminable sky
Sublimer swells, and o'er the world expands
A purer azure.
Your student reads the whole passage, pausing only where the sense pauses, not at every line end.
Talk about it
SayWhat changes in the sky and the fields after the storm?
SayThomson asks a question near the end. What is he asking, and what answer does he expect?
SayWhat does the poet mean by "the Hand that hushed the thunder"?
SayBlank verse has no rhyme. How did you know where the pauses belong?
Tell it back
Your student explains the passage in plain prose: first the scene, then the poet's question.
Copywork and memory
Copy and learn:
Shall man, so soon forgetful of the Hand
That hushed the thunder, and serenes the sky,
Write (optional)
Write a few sentences about how the world looks and sounds just after a storm.